Catching Fire Review - OR - All the Fire Puns Have Been Burned Up Already

Plot

After breaking the rules and surviving their Games, victorious tributes Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) return to District 12 and try to recover. However, with the Victory Tour to come, Katniss discovers that she’s inadvertently alighted the embers of rebellion, and needs to convince the malevolent President Snow (Donald Sutherland) that her and Peeta’s love is real. But with the 75^thHunger Games around the corner, she quickly discovers the Capitol’s true power and fury in the form of the 3rd Quarter Quell.

What's with the skinny rib-cage thang? Surely not appropriate for your badass military unit of choice.

Review

When The Hunger Games launched to a $152.5 million weekend debut two years ago, it took quite literally everybody by surprise. Young Adult is the new vogue genre, crafted and mastered by Harry Potterand Twilight, and there have been more than a few pretenders to the throne. All of which failed. The Hunger Games however didn’t just succeed, it broke just about every record in the book. Just because it could.

The Hunger Games with Katniss Everdeen is queen now, and they’re ready set the world ablaze with the follow-up Catching Fire.

With a new director – Francis Lawrence (no relation) – and release date, it was looking so far so Twilight for Catching Fire. Fortunately this particular sequel is nothing of the sort.

What truly characterises this adaptation of Suzanne Collin’s seminal book is its balance. Balance between gut-wrenching drama (of which there is an almost cruel amount) and light-hearted, legitimately giggle-worthy, comedy, epitomised by the sassy presence of Jenna Malone as ex-victorious tribute Johanna Mason.

'Style' is...a subjective term.

More notably: the balance between respecting what’s come before and going gung-ho in the hunt for new. Fortunately, Gary Ross’s remarkably intimate story-telling stylings have carried over with the camera often as close to Katniss as possible, keeping the use of handycam in the ‘conservative but effective' camp. When we arrive in the new arena however, where everything is quite literally exotic and out-of-this-world, Francis Lawrence holds no punches, culminating in a hair-raising conclusion that’s leaps & bounds ahead of its papery brethren.

Our path may be the same – starting in the (beautifully captured, yet eerily haunting) dilapidation of District 12 then slowly moving towards the newly luscious arena – but the story itself is fresh, effortlessly weaving themes and intrigues together for a plot that, while ostensibly simple, is in fact full of devastatingly human nuance. There are new schemes at play this time around, a renewed focus on Panem-at-large (indeed, the first half of the film is a whistle-stop tour) rather than the Games themselves, allowing the film to ditch the icky ‘kids killing kids’ legacy and how best to handle it, instead focusing on delivering a solid narrative. Everything is naturally bigger this time around, we are in sequel territory after all, but it’s also darker too, both visually and thematically. There’s an art to those nefarious jungle-scapes, provided you can ignore the ceaseless tension long enough to think about it.

The vital sense of humanity and goodwill in this grim and grisly world derives and flows from one place: Jennifer Lawrence. Her performance is beyond standard exaltations and probably requires a thesaurus to adequately describe. Put simply – and not that it’d ever happen – but her dedication and skill with the film’s key emotional beats is award-worthy all over again. The tiniest flicker of the eyes, clenching of the jaw, a single uttered word, and you can truly feel the anger/ heartbreak/ misery of this deeply fascinating character. Katniss is the Girl-On-Fire while all she dreams of is a snowy field, and Lawrence pitches it perfectly.

Stanley Tucci is a global treasure. Here's Jennifer Lawrence praising him.

Not that the rest of the cast don’t pull their weight of course. Woody Harrelson is back as drunkard loner come mentor Haymitch, Elisabeth Banks gets to rock her ludicrous wigs as Effie, Donald Sutherland reaches all new levels of unsettling malice as big-bad President Snow, and newcomers Sam Claflin (as District 4 tribute and Capitol heartthrob Finnick Odair) Jeffrey Wright (as District 3 tribute and reclusive brain box Beetee) and Phillip Seymour-Hoffman (as new Head Gamemaker and resident Mr. Ambiguity Plutarch Heavensbee) all fit snuggly into their new characters, hitting that Goldilocks quality of feeling ‘just right.’

It’s not all perfect of course. On top of Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth is back as Gale, aka ‘the other love interest’ (because what’s love worth if it isn’t in triangles?) and again marks one of the weakest elements of the film. At 2+ hours, Catching Fire is no quick-flick (and in fact fixes some of the book’s pacing problems) but it still manages to feel rushed, most notably concerning Katniss & Gale who have simply not spent enough time together across the two movies to make the potentially destructive consequences of their relationship warrant much sense. One of the most affecting sub-plots of the book – Haymitch’s history – has found itself on the cutting room floor in the hunt for streamlining too. An understandable, if not disappointing, exclusion considering his significance to the saga at large. With an adaptation, there will always be oversights and missteps - for example, Peeta's painting which is left far too vague in the film iteration - but Catching Fire gets enough right that barely matters.

What the original Hunger Games did so well is that it was an adaptation that worked as an adaption. It worked with the book, expanding the story that made sense in regards to its medium, and managed to craft its own identity whilst still very much being ‘The Hunger Games.’ Catching Fire is no different. It’s no accident that the most beguiling scenes are those ‘behind the curtain’ as it were, which show us that President Snow is no simple scheming figurehead, but a real (albeit broodingly evil) human being. He’s a villain with substance, and seems so much more terrible for it.

I hate it when this happens on nights out.

Verdict

I almost don't want to say it but...I'm gonna say it: Catching Fire is a sequel in the vein of Empire Strikes Back. It's bigger (much bigger) and darker (so very much darker) than it’s predecessor, but never loses its sense of identity. A rare treat.

5/5

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The Counselor Review - OR - Think to Your Doom

Plot

A high-flying lawman (Michael Fassbender) is living the good life, full of riches and the girl of his dreams, Laura (Penelope Cruz). However, after involving himself in a drug deal with kingpin Reiner (Javier Bardem) and middle-man Westray (Brad Pitt), his plans go array. He, along with his associates, become prime targets for the ruthless Mexican Cartel, triggering a desperate fight for survival against unseen forces.

He was an unconventional therapist.

Review

What is The Counselor? It’s ostensibly a thriller; at least that’s what the adverts say. A thriller presumably based on the experiences of the titular lawman.

…But that’s probably wrong.

Who knows what The Counselor actually is. Scriptwriter Cormac McCarthy might, or director Ridley Scott. Though that’s a long shot.

The Counselor is weird.

You think massages are relaxing? YOU IDIOT. They're obviously about symbolism and stuff.

There are two things that make up The Counselor: it’s cast and it’s script. Oh boy, what an ensemble. Diaz, Pitt, Fassbender, Cruz, Bardem? Sign me the hell up! But wait: there’s a lot more to a film than an A-Team cast. If anything, The Counselor is hearty testimony to the whole ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ thing, though the meaning may very well be inverted.

Not that the cast aren’t good. They are actually – Diaz (as Reiner’s hot-blooded girlfriend Malkina) is…unrecongisable; it’s either her best or her worst performance ever (a weird notion, but the line is honestly that thin) – and many of the strongest scenes are the various loquacious, metaphysical conversations between the central quintet.  Pitt and Fassbender discussing snuff films, Bardem and Fassbender talking about the ultimate murder weapon? It’s chilling stuff, testament to the power of words. But for every scene where McCarthy and Scott’s nuanced ethereal style works, there are another three where it doesn’t.

The narrative is, quite literally, all over the place and doesn’t seem bothered to answer very basic questions, normally based along the lines of ‘who the hell is that?’ Most notably, there is zero reasoning given behind the Counselor’s decision to become embroiled in the drug deal in the first place (his is the life of luxury), or indeed what his role is. There’s a brief scene concerning some diamonds and a metaphorical need for perfection…or something. And that’s just the issue: sometimes subtlety simply doesn’t work, especially when it’s subtlety so subtle it threatens to blow away if you blink too hard.

In one scene, Cameron Diaz has sex with a car. And it probably means something, or a whole bunch of somethings, like…materialism? The debasement of sex and society? Was she just horny? Who knows. It so obviously means something, and that something is so emphatically obtuse, that it’s hard to really care. Especially when it’s presented, probably metaphorically, as a flashback.

Bardem here showing you what happens when you mix cocaine with rainbows.

Presentation is the biggest issue here. Characters will flash by in an instant (including criminally short turns by Natalie Dormer, Dean Norris and John Leguizamo) and several scenes either make no sense at all or so little sense, devoid of context and narrative significance as they are, that they’re almost applaudable.

Ultimately, the morally grey dystopic world, where ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are interchangeable notions bordering on pointless and even the smallest of decisions can have unforeseen cosequences, has been better done elsewhere. Much better done in some circumstances. Ever heard of Breaking Bad?

But what about that screenplay?

The dialogue is not remotely realistic; it’s never meant to be (note: literary). But whatever philosophy McCarthy has embedded in the DNA of the film threatens to become lost entirely. It’s interesting granted, grimly dealing with machinations of morality and choice (…I think), but its development and delivery is more ‘…eh?’ rather than ‘hmm.’ Every character has apparently read the same Big Ol’ Book O’ Platitudes and will jump at the chance to throw words like ‘choice,’ ‘fate’, ‘destiny’ and others at each other in an escalating conflict of the obscure.

But let’s omit a few words here: pretentious, pointless, ponderous. If it wasn’t for the scattershot approach to the narrative and frequently fleeting characters, the dialogue may very well command the film front and centre, grabbing it and its audience by the scruff of the neck, demonstrating the secret beauty of a nihilistic world, where ‘cinematic’ refers less to visual set-piece and more to mental dexterity. The Counselor is a hard sell, McCarthy’s script even more so, but with the plethora of intrinsic failings there’s a lethal lack of focus and everything starts to seem just a little bit…pretentious, pointless and ponderous.

Why is there a horse on top of that car?

Verdict

The Counselor is weirdly self-reflective: a humdinger of a cast and crew, it looks gorgeous, inviting, undeniably alluring – it just has to be good, look at it! – but it hides a secret darkness, where everything is far different than what it seems.

3/5

It's one of those 'deceptive' ones:

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Gravity Review - OR - I'll Scream If I Want To

Plot

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a mission specialist on her first space flight aboard the Explorer to service the Hubble telescope. Along with Lieutenant Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) – a veteran astronaut and commander of the mission – she is sent spiraling into danger when high-speed satellite debris shreds the Explorer, forcing the two of them into a desperate race for survival.

Space, not the place for back flips

Review

Sci-fi gets an awful lot of stick for being, well…sci-fi. The domain of the geek. A genre full of lasers, gobbledygook jargon, incomprehensible stories, ludicrous plots and too liberal a use of the phrase ‘science fiction’ as an excuse for everything. Midichlorians? C’mooooon.

But what happens when you ground sci-fi in cold reality? Not quite fact – as Niel Degrasse ‘Pluto isn’t a planet’ Tyson has delighted in pointing out – but in the real world, with real people in a (mostly) realistic environment?

The result is Gravity. And it is truly glorious.

Terrifying and splendiferous, like Helena Bonham Carter.

Visuals are the dish of the day with Gravity, and a review can’t do them justice. Transcendental? The shots of Earth, it’s cityscapes, mountain ranges, the transition from day to night and the gentle rising of the sun; Earth seems almost lonely, for all it’s arrogant size and scope, lost in the depths of space. It’s beautiful beyond description, frightening in equal measure. You are Dr. Stone, and the conflation between awe-inspiring splendor and gut-wrenching fear is all too real.

Can anything be truly beautiful in the face of impending doom, where the Earth despite it’s size is so very far away, where your only company are your regrets, fears and freezing breath? You’re damn right it can. All it takes is a small reminder of home – a memory or a dog barking – and immersion in total, terrifying, utopia.

Technically speaking, Gravity is a marvel. How it was shot (Gravity is part of that rare enough club: ‘delayed because the technology didn’t exist yet’) will be subject of many a documentary but one thing’s for certain: director Alfonso Cuaron is a wizard with a camera. There’s a gorgeous homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Star Child around the midwaymark; the floating beaten body of Dr. Stone stripped to her underclothes, framed by a halo of sunlight. In a single move Cuaron crafts a poetic image while acknowledging one of his film’s greatest inspirations; the visual and sound design parallels with Kubrik’s sci-fi masterpiece can only be intentional.

The 3D is comparable only to the granddaddy of the medium, Avatar. If immersion is what you're after, immersion in a world (our world) and a character, then Gravity is a rare acknowledgement of that increasingly saturated adage ‘better in 3D.’ It’s a superficial thing, naturally, but implemented with such care and skill that it transcends simplistic sensual boundaries.

Plaudits to the music too, which in itself is a microcosm for everything that Gravity does so well. Equal parts hauntingly beautiful, bombastic and exciting, it perhaps best excels in its restraint; silence is music here for the most part. Terrible total silence.

Formula 1 has changed, man.

The entire production, from monstrously long opening shot to the credits, is spent in almost discomforting intimacy with Sandra Bullock’s Dr. Stone. She’s a tragic figure, who sees the abyssal infinitude of space as an escape from the true darkness of her home life, and Bullock’s performance is frequently shattering. Dialogue – or monologue as the case often is – can flop on occasion, forced too far down the route of exposition, but Bullock pulls it off. Her shock and terror is palpable – understandable! - in the face of mounting chaos, and the sound of her labored breathing, the frequent point-of-view shots, are constant reminder of the insurmountable peril of space (which the introductory flash cards delight in unerring you with).

It makes for breathless viewing, almost cruel in it’s dogged attack on the senses, ramping up the stakes with each increasingly tense set-piece. Gravityis the Kessler effect come real and yeah, the science may not be perfect, but so far as uncensored cinematic entertainment goes, well…Gravity NEEDS to be watched on the big screen.

Let’s be honest here, Gravity tells a relatively one-dimensional story (there’s a big problem, survive it) in a simplistic linear fashion with frequently mediocre dialogue. Of the two actual characters, one is exclusively a foil, who doesn’t even begin to develop or change in any meaningful way.

But then again, he doesn’t need to.

Gravity is a masterful, meticulous production; its 90-minute run-time (a clever diegetic threat) is as toned as an athlete. As disappointing as Matt’s lack of development may be on a macro scale, the simple fact is that he doesn’t need to. It doesn’t make sense for him to. Dialogue may not be great – though Matt’s stories and cocksure attitude do raise a smile – but it’s serviceable in the expression of what, despite the fantastic visuals and highbrow high-stakes setting, is in fact a devastatingly humanstory.

In going to the one place that guarantees the end of biological life, where every branch and rule and assumption of society is cosmically redundant, Gravity explores what truly makes us human.

In the end, the title is the punch line to world’s cruelest practical joke. And it’s perfect.

She kept asking, he kept refusing: space is no place for arm wrestles.

Verdict

Gravity gave me shivers. It nearly brought a tear to my eye. And most importantly, it made me smile like a great big stonking idiot.

6/5

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